SAN JOSE – A woman has died after an SUV driver hit her on an East San Jose street Tuesday afternoon, authorities said, marking the city’s third traffic death in a single day.
The victim was the 22nd pedestrian killed in a San Jose roadway collision in 2022, approaching 2021’s entire pedestrian death total of 23.
The collision was reported just after 5 p.m. near Leeward Drive and Arden Way, according to the San Jose Police Department. An initial investigation determined that the victim was walking across Leeward Drive in a marked crosswalk when a motorist in a 2005 Nissan SUV heading east hit her.
The driver stopped at the scene, and the injured woman was taken to the hospital. She was initially described as having life-threatening injuries, but police announced Wednesday morning that she had died.
On Thursday, the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office identified the victim as Laura Patricia Ortega Bautista, 54, of San Jose.
Her death added to one of the deadliest roadway days in recent memory. Early Tuesday, a woman was killed by a hit-and-run driver near South Jackson and Kammerer avenues — also in East San Jose — and later that morning, a man died after he crashed his car into a tree near Santa Teresa Boulevard and San Ignacio Avenue in South San Jose.
Roadway collisions have killed 37 people in San Jose this year, keeping the city on pace to surpass the 60 traffic deaths recorded last year, which itself was a 25-year peak matched in 2015 and 2019.
The trajectory has spurred proposed and planned countermeasures from city leaders, including increased traffic enforcement. One of the responses has been the launch of a pilot program that installed automated license plate readers at Monterey Road and Curtner Avenue, one of the city’s busiest and most dangerous intersections.
Anyone with information about the fatal collision near Leeward Drive and Arden Way can contact Traffic Detective Tori Dellicarpini by email at 4103@sanjoseca.gov or at 408-277-4654.
